Our South America trip was everything I wanted it to be. Our group had an unbelievable time exploring 3 different countries over 9 days, starting with the beautiful Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Friday, November 18
We left DC and SF on Thursday, met up for our connecting flight in Dallas, and continued on together, arriving in Brazil Friday morning. Once we landed we took a taxi straight to our hostel (Hostel Harmonia) right off of Ipanema Beach. This was my first experience staying in a hostel, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Not that I expected it to be a negative experience, but Hostel Harmonia was clean, cozy, and had extremely friendly staff. We wasted no time after arriving and booked a favela tour for the afternoon. I had no clue what a favela was and on the way there Ryan asked me if I knew where we were going. I told him I thought we were seeing a school and he laughed and said "No, we're going to the slums of Rio." Favelas are shacks alongside mountainsides where poor people live (shanty towns).
Our tour guide explained to us that there is a constant tension between people in the favelas and people in the city because favela residents don't pay taxes, there is no police presence in them, and they are run by drug lords. The head drug lord was actually caught two weekends prior to our visit so the police had started occupying the favela we toured.
Police force outside of favela
Saturday, November 19
We woke up fairly early and walked quite a ways to some Botanical Gardens on Saturday. They were peaceful and beautiful even if we only stayed briefly. Even though it was raining that morning, we booked the huge 5-hour tour of Rio anyways because we didn't want to gamble on the weather the rest of our time in Rio. There were about 13 people or so on our tour total for the afternoon. The tour really didn't hold back because the first stop was Christ the Redeemer! We drove (a little crazy) up the mountain to get to it, and then took an elevator, and escalator the remainder of the way. Just as we got up to the top the fog started rolling in, so we took a few quick shots of us in front of the statue and then everything went completely white. It was unfortunate because we only had 30 minutes up there and for 20 of them everyting was covered in fog. Luckily, 5 minutes before we had to go back down to meet our guide, the fog lifted and we were able to get a few more pictures of all of us in front of Christ. The view from up there was amazing, when the fog was clear. It goes without saying that this Wonder of the World is a must see if you visit Rio. The view alone is enough to amaze you. Add a towering statue that protects the city and it's well worth your time.
The next stop on our tour was the town of Saint Theresa. I suck at paying attention so I do not remember the significance of the town besides its use of trolley cars, and we honestly didn't stay there very long before moving to the next site, a gigantic modern church, Catedral Metropolitana. The outside was not attractive at all in my opinion, kind of a huge brown cone with the top cut off, but the inside was beautiful. Stain glass panels covered the walls and the pews were set up in a circular fashion surrounding an altar with a hanging Crucifix.
I have seen a lot of beautiful churches (even just on this trip) and Catedral Metropolitana was unlike anything I've ever seen. After the church we drove to Escadaria Selaron, a staircase designed by artist Jorge Selarón.
He found a set of stairs in 1990 that were run down, dirty, and decided to take tiles that he had collected from around the world and decorate the space. We found San Francisco tiles, Peru tiles, a Qatar tile, and an Ohio tile. The last stop on our trip was Sugar Loaf Mountain. A suspended car took us up one mountain and then another one took us all the way up to the summit of Sugar Loaf. From the top we could see everything in Rio -- Christ the Redeemer, Ipanema Beach, Copacabana Beach, and the entire city. Just like Christ the Redeemer, the view was breath taking... and there was more room to walk around than atop Christ's mountain. We enjoyed some delicious cheese bread balls at the top before heading back down.
Our tour didn't end until 5:00 so by the time we got back to Harmonia we decided to take a nap before dinner we were so tired. Our dinner consisted of crappy "hamburgers" that I'm convinced were secretly meatloaf, but afterwards we took the advice of the staff and went to see samba! BEST. DECISION. EVER. We took a long taxi ride to the middle of nowhere, which made us a little nervous, and ended up at this building that was just a huge room with all of the lights on. There was a live band playing but mostly people sitting or standing around eating and drinking. No one was dancing and it was kind of strange at first because it obviously was not like any club in the U.S. THEN the dancers came out and started performing. Holy crap those girls were wearing next to nothing! I saw so many butts and partial boobs it was unbelievable. I have never seen samba before and their legs were moving so fast. The entire experience was fantastic, between the dancers, and the live music, and the audience participating, and the four of us did not return to our hostel until very late (or early depending on how you look at it). Probably the most packed day we had during our trip I would say. But the best part of Rio is coming up!
This post is archived under
Brazil,
Favela,
Rio de Janeiro,
Samba,
South America
Looks like a fun vacation! =)
pinkchampagnefashion.blogspot.com